November 6th, 2013 by Josh Linden

Dot Hill today launched a lineup of AssuredSAN 4004 storage devices based on the company’s ninth-generation RAID architecture, including 12Gb SAS arrays and first-to-market 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel/10Gb iSCSI converged interface models. The AssuredSAN 4004 platform is designed for high-bandwidth cloud services and vertical markets such as media and entertainment, oil and gas, telecommunications, big data analytics, and digital image archiving. The new devices are available with 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives.

AssuredSAN 4004 storage solutions offer the highest bandwidth available in the Dot Hill lineup and are intercompatible with previous Dot Hill AssuredSAN solutions. AssuredSAN 4824 and AssuredSAN 4834 offer converged interfaces via a four-port controller that can be configured in the field with four 16Gb Fibre Channel ports, four 10Gb iSCSI ports, or a combination of two 16Gb Fibre Channel and two 10Gb iSCSI ports. These arrays are backward-compatible with 8Gb/4Gb Fibre Channel and1Gb iSCSI networking solutions, while new AssuredSAN 4524 and AssuredSAN 4534 12Gb SAS models are backward-compatible with existing 6Gb SAS devices.

Dot Hill expects to announce AssuredSAN 4004 support for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and Veeam Backup & Replication in the future. The new arrays are also expected to support HGST and Seagate Full Disk Encryption (FDE) in the first quarter of 2014. FDE encrypts every write operation and decrypts every read operation without user intervention. Drive-level protection of data means that drives are protected even if stolen, taken out of service, or repurposed.

Pricing and Availability

The new devices will begin shipping in volume worldwide to Dot Hill channel partners this month. The suggested list price for a 48 terabyte AssuredSAN 4834 16Gb Fibre Channel/10Gb iSCSI model is $39,869. A similar dual controller configuration with eight ports of 12Gb SAS is $40,265 suggested list price.